Max Barry

"Hey, I saw this old British movie, all the people spoke so different, you could hardly understand them. But everyone here speaks American as good as you and me. What's with that?"

“Your problem is that reality isn’t good enough for you.” she says levelly. “You need a fantasy.”

There’s nothing more fascinating than a girl who won’t have sex with you.

It was turning into a sly, anti–free market statement, and irony irritated him. There was no place for irony in marketing: it made people want to look for deeper meaning. There was no place in marketing for that, either.

“Look, how about this: just once, don’t assume every person you meet has a personal vendetta against you.”

6 frowns at her drink. “That’s not a sound strategy.”

The easier your job, the more you got paid. John had suspected this for many years, but here was the proof: pulling down five hundred bucks an hour to sit in the afternoon sun on top of an L.A. office tower. He was wearing a suit and shades, reclining on a deck chair while a light breeze blew in from the bay. John thought he might have found the perfect job.

The compound was like a mutant Boy Scout camp: all green tents and vehicles and barrels, smack in the middle of nowhere. He saw a troop of soldiers drilling in a field. They reminded him of high school football players with guns. Then a tank rolled past.

“Shit! What’s that?”

“That is an Abrams M1A battle tank, sir!”

Billy looked around with new respect. Now he understood why the NRA membership fees were so high.

mktg case study #9: mktg lies

OCCASIONALLY, JUST OF COURSE, YOUR COMPANY WILL BE CAUGHT IN A LIE. THIS IS NOT GOOD. IF POSSIBLE, IMMEDIATELY FIRE SOMEONE EXPENDABLE AND PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE. IF NOT, YOU MUST STICK TO THE LIE. PERCEPTION IS REALITY.

John said, "You know what makes a successful executive?"

“Reversing gender stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them,” 6 says, tossing the bacon. “You just create a whole new set of prejudices.”

"By this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there's only one conclusion. It's time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government."

“Art and marketing can’t coexist,” Tina says. “It’s either one or the other.”

“Not this again,” 6 says from the sofa.

Tina ignores her. “I made the film for you with the intention of appealing to a bunch of corporate suits. That I used artistic techniques to do it is irrelevant.”

“Just because it’s aimed at a particular market means it’s not art?” I say.

Tina nods once. “Exactly.”

I frown. “What if I take a work of art and market it? It’s still art, right?”

“You can’t take artwork and just tweak it to be more commercially appealing.” She sips at her beer. “Not without destroying its artistic merit.”

“Tina, this is so crap,” 6 says, standing up. “If I showed you a painting but didn’t tell you whether it was created by a starving artist or an agency commissioned to produce it, you couldn’t tell me whether it was art or not.”

“Oh, I think I’d be able to tell,” Tina says.

6 shifts impatiently. “Who cares what the intent was? It’s the result that matters.”

“The intent is not divorceable from the result,” Tina says. “I know you people don’t want to face that, but it’s true.”

“You don’t want to face the fact that marketing is the greatest producer of art on the planet. There’s packaging, copy, TV advertising—can you tell me why that’s not art?”

“If you can’t make that distinction yourself, I won’t be able to explain it to you.”

“Oh, right,” 6 says, “you think some hack’s poems that no one ever reads are more important than movie half the world sees? A lot more people have seen a Coke can than a van Gogh.”

“I’ve noticed you corporate people do this,” Tina says. “Confuse popularity with quality.”

“It’s a democratic society, Tina,” 6 says. “Your opinion of what’s quality is no more valid than mine. Popularity is quality. And so marketers are today’s real artists.”

“Drink, anyone?” I say.